An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2024 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

16058 entries, 14142 authors and 1947 subjects. Updated: November 9, 2024

ABULCASIS (Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi; أبو القاسم خلف بن العباس الزهراوي‎), [Albucasis]

8 entries
  • 11287

Liber servitoris de praeparatione medicinarum simplicium. Translated by Abraham Tortuosiensis. Edited by Simon a Cordo.

Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 1471.

Book 28 on drugs from the Al-Tasrif, a 30-volume Arabic encyclopaedia on medicine and surgery, written ca. 1000 CE by AbulcasisISTC No. ia00014000. Digital facsimile from the Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart at this link.



Subjects: MEDIEVAL MEDICINE › Medieval Islamic or Arab Medicine, PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS
  • 3666.82

Chirurgia cum formis instrumentorum (Tr: Gerardus Cremonensis). IN: Guy de Chauliac: Chirurgia parva. Add: Albulcasis: Chirurgia cum formis instrumentorum. Jesus filius Hali: De oculis (Tr: Dominicus Marrochinus). Canamusali de Baldach: De oculis.

Venice: Bonetus Locatellus, 15001501.

The surgical section of Albucasis’s Altasrif, the first rational, complete and illustrated treatise on surgery and surgical instruments. The author was an  Arab Muslim physician and surgeon who lived in Al-Andalus. During the Middle Ages this was the leading textbook on surgery until it was superseded by Saliceto. The work was first published in print in the Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona, in this collective edition, in which Guy de Chauliac's surgery was the lead title. Besides its significance in general surgery and for the history of surgical instruments, Albucasis's work was “of great importance for the development of practical dentistry” (Hoffmann-Axthelm). Chapter 28 discusses excision of epulis. Chapter 29 deals with calculus. Albucasis understood that calculus on the teeth is a major cause of periodontal disease and gave explicit instructions for scaling the teeth, describing the instruments which he invented for this purpose. Chapter 30 covers tooth extraction, and Chapter 33 contains one of the earliest discussions of tooth prostheses, and describes some oral surgery procedures. The work contains some of the earliest illustrations of dental instruments. See No. 5550.  

Note that Albucasis's surgery, a work of significant practical value, was the last, or one of the last, of the medieval classics of surgery to be printed. ISTC no. ig00564000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.  

A superbly illustrated 14th century MS of Albucasis was reproduced in full color facsimile as Codex Vindobonensis Series Nova 2641, Graz, Akademische Druck, 1979.



Subjects: DENTISTRY › Dental Instruments & Apparatus, DENTISTRY › Oral Surgery, DENTISTRY › Periodontics, DENTISTRY › Prosthodontics, INSTRUMENTS & TECHNOLOGIES › Dental Instruments, INSTRUMENTS & TECHNOLOGIES › Surgical Instruments, ISLAMIC OR ARAB MEDICINE, MEDIEVAL MEDICINE , MEDIEVAL MEDICINE › France, MEDIEVAL MEDICINE › Medieval Islamic or Arab Medicine, OPHTHALMOLOGY , SURGERY: General
  • 3048

Liber theoricae nec non practicae Alsaharavii.

Augsburg: imp. S. Grimm & M. Vuirsung, 1519.

This is the first printing of the medical and therapeutic section of Abul Qasim’s medical encyclopedia or al-Tasrif. It contains what is probably the earliest description of hemophilia (fol. 145). Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: Encyclopedias, GENETICS / HEREDITY › HEREDITARY / CONGENITAL DISEASES OR DISORDERS › Blood Disorders, GENETICS / HEREDITY › HEREDITARY / CONGENITAL DISEASES OR DISORDERS › Blood Disorders › Hemophilia, HEMATOLOGY, MEDIEVAL MEDICINE , MEDIEVAL MEDICINE › Medieval Islamic or Arab Medicine
  • 9011

Octavii Horatiani reum medicarum Lib. Quatuor. I. Logicus, De curationibus omnium ferme morborum corporis humani, ad Euporistum. II. De acutis & chronicis passionibus, ad eundem. III. Gynecia, De mulierum accidentibus, & curis eorundem, ad Victoriam. IIII. De physica scientia, experimentorum liber, ad Eusebium filium. Albucasis. chirurgicorum omium primarii, lib. tres. I. De cauterio cum igne, & medicins acutis per singula corporis humani membra. Cum instrumentorum delimatione. II. De sectione & perforatione, phlebotomia, & ventosis. De vulternibus, & extractione sagittaru, & certeris similibus. Cum formis instrumentorum. III. De restuartione & curatione, dislocationis membrorum. Cum typis item instrumentorum.

Strassburg, Austria: apud Joannem Schottum, 1532.

In this, the first printed edition of Rerum medicarum libri quatuor by the late antique Byzantine physician Theodorus Priscianus, his work was misattributed to Octavianus Horatianus. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link. It may be somewhat ironic that Priscianus's work, of relatively limited value from a period in which there was little or no medical advance, was published together with Albucasis' surgery, a work of the greatest practical value.

"Priscianus was a pupil of the physician Vindicianus, fixing the period of his life in the fourth century. He is said to have lived at the court of Constantinople, and to have obtained the dignity of Archiater. He belonged to the medical sect of the Empirici, but not without a certain mixture of the doctrines of the Methodici, and even of the Dogmatici[1][2]" (Wikipedia).



Subjects: ANCIENT MEDICINE › Late Antiquity, BYZANTINE MEDICINE, MEDIEVAL MEDICINE › Medieval Islamic or Arab Medicine, SURGERY: General
  • 5550

De chirurgia. Arabice et Latine cura Johannis Channing. 3 vols.

Oxford: e typ. Clarendoniano, 1778.

This parallel Arabic-Latin edition prepared by the apothecary John Channing is the first printed edition in Arabic, and the first modern edition of the text. Digital facsimile of the 1778 edition from Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.



Subjects: DENTISTRY, ISLAMIC OR ARAB MEDICINE, MEDIEVAL MEDICINE , MEDIEVAL MEDICINE › Medieval Islamic or Arab Medicine, SURGERY: General
  • 10460

La chirurgie d'Abulcasis. Précédée d'une introduction. Avec planches.Traduite par le Dr. Lucien Leclerc.

Paris: J.-B. Baillière, 1861.

First translation into French. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link


  • 7413

A pharmaceutical view of Abulcasis al-Zahrawi in moorish Spain.

Leiden: Brill, 1963.


Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Spain, ISLAMIC OR ARAB MEDICINE › History of Islamic or Arab Medicine, MEDIEVAL MEDICINE › Medieval Islamic or Arab Medicine, PHARMACOLOGY › History of Pharmacology & Pharmaceuticals
  • 9353

Albucasis on surgery and instruments. A definitive edition of the Arabic text, with English translation and commentary by M. S. Spink and G. L. Lewis.

London: The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1973.


Subjects: INSTRUMENTS & TECHNOLOGIES › Surgical Instruments, MEDIEVAL MEDICINE › Medieval Islamic or Arab Medicine, SURGERY: General